


smothering you with flowers

by kyrilu



Category: Channel Zero (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Dark, Dreams, F/M, Half-Sibling Incest, Obsession, One-Sided Relationship, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 03:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17357969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: Sometimes I have dreams that I don’t think are mine.





	smothering you with flowers

**Author's Note:**

> I just discovered this ship and _it is my jam._ Apologies for the first person POV, but I've been reading a lot of works by Otsuichi lately and thought first person POV might fit Ian.
> 
> i'll probably try to write something slightly longer (and not first person POV) if I find the time/inspiration.

I.

Sometimes I have dreams that I don’t think are mine. I dream of a smiling clown with a wide red mouth, and I am sleeping warm in his warped arms. I dream of a woman who sings me lullabies, and she is not my mother, because my mother has never sang to me. I dream of playing soccer - a childhood friend named Tom - a black pug stuffed animal - skipping stones by a lake - and looking in the mirror, seeing dark beautiful hair and dark beautiful eyes. In my dreams, I ask her for her name. She never hears me, never tells me, and I wake up with a feeling of loss in my chest.

 

II.

As a kid, I was stupid. I drew Tall Boy with Bingo the dog in his giant hands, holding him by his scruff. I drew Tall Boy crushing Simon Hill under his feet -  _you’re a weirdo, Ian, you’re a freak -_  while I stand by, stick arms raised in triumph. My red crayon was always short and worn down from use.

Many Asian countries see red as a lucky color. Catholics associate red with the deadly sin of wrath. The ancient Romans with their god Mars - for some Africans, with death and mourning. Jung’s  _Red Book_  is an account of his dreams, featuring a horseman in a red coat:  _I think: in the end he will turn out to be the devil._

Red matted on Bingo’s fur, red pooling from Simon Hill’s body.

Later, I tell Jill that I don’t like seeing violence.

 

III.

For my first sexual experience, I am fourteen, and I try to make the girl I see in my dreams. I dream of her wavy hair and her laughter, her quick hands and her dreaming eyes. She bleeds white when I kiss her, and sickened, heartbroken, I take her apart in my arms.

I want to get her right. I visit museums and look at skeletons. I read books on human anatomy. I study the model at the doctor’s office. I even have Tall Boy dig up Simon Hill from under the sandbox for me.

Still, she bleeds white.

 

IV.

The one time she sees me, I am sixteen, and we are dreaming of my ( _our_ ) father’s house by the lake. She has her hands in the lake casting about for stones, and I give her one, and it is smooth and white and fits perfectly in her palm.

I want to ask her why she never comes out right when I attempt to make her. I want to ask her who the grinning clown is. I want to ask her if she bleeds red. But the words are caught in my throat, and instead, I keep our hands pressed together, the stone in between.

“Who are you?” she says, and she doesn’t pull away. “You look - familiar.”

I curl my fingers tighter around hers, crushing the stone against my hand so hard that it leaves an indentation. On tiptoes, I tilt my head up, and on tiptoes, I kiss her. Softly, gently, reverent, as if I can draw the breath from her mouth into mine.

I think she’s like me. A dreamer, creator, superhero, puppeteer. She’s a real person, and we’re enjoined like aorta and arteries.

Even though she looks confused, she relaxes against me and kisses back. I feel a dawning sense of realization - because she must have been having  _my_ dreams, too, even if she can’t quite remember them, even if she doesn’t know my name.

 

V.

Her name is Jillian, and she’s my sister. We share blood, marrow, and dreams. I say her name - our name - to myself like a lullaby:  _Jillian, Jill Ian, Jill and Ian._  For all my father’s faults, for all his infidelities and betrayals and cruelties, he still brought her into the world as well as me. Me, with my awkward smile and watery blue eyes and too-clever mind and deadly dreams. Her, with her bright smile and warm dark eyes and just so  _perfect_  with her imagination and intensity and power.

I have a sister and I’m in love with her.

 

VI.

This maniac love, this nightmare love, this love of a decade - two decades - no, eternity, or what feels like it. I make a flock of crows to watch her as she goes to school, goes to work, goes out with that boy-now-man Tom.

One day, she’ll need me, and she’ll remember the blue-eyed boy of her dreams. For now, I wait, and I make girls who bleed white when I kiss them.


End file.
